


Terrifying Peace

by crankylemondrops



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 05:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankylemondrops/pseuds/crankylemondrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashley reflects on honor, hope, death and desires for love during a chaotic moment on a rebuilding Thessia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terrifying Peace

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble meant for a much larger story set in a post-game, mostly canon Mass Effect world. I simply needed to force myself to write.

Shields down and with the siding of her chestplate faltering under another incendiary round, it occurs to Ashley she’s terrified to die. Thoughts of Virmire briefly enter her mind, but in the tower there was only a morbid acceptance of her presumed death; fueled by a desire to shape herself into a martyr with a chance to restore a twisted sense of honor to her family. Surrounded by the ruins of Thessia, neglected and overtaken by the native flora after all these years, there is no misguided ideology to provide comfort. Only a promise she intends to keep and a truth longing to be voiced after what feels like an endless time carefully ignored or cast aside.

Another round of fire rushes past; the dilapidated column providing cover takes the brunt of the damage, pieces of grey and violet-tinged stone crumbling to the ground. Once evidence of the beauty and ingenuity of Asari architecture reduced to fragmented rubble, subjected to an unworthy end to its once glorious purpose. Laughter, the haunting yet freeing sort which comes when the inevitable is accepted, bubbles up from her throat. She knows if she were to look not ten feet across from her position she’d see as realization dawned, showing itself on her face.

So look she does.

One must cling with desperation to their beliefs in the face of death she tells herself, and in doing so hopes she is met with only the fondest of memories; an indescribable feeling of contentedness from both the living and dead which cannot be stripped. It’s quite possibly the last wish she’ll have, and she prays for it to come true. She cannot spend eternity with the haunted look of anguish she finds on Liara’s face, the recognition clear in her eyes. All the walls of the hardened woman she shows the galaxy to protect both herself and identity crashing down around her like the columns behind them. In this moment Ashley wants to hold onto one more hope, to push her luck and believe she sees more than the affection and devotion of a friend. She knows, though, Liara has never done well with letting those she holds close be claimed by death. Nothing less than absurd, Ashley thinks, to hope for something she wouldn’t even admit to herself until the end is almost certainly assured.

Ashley wonders if she’s leaving her own mark of cowardly behavior on the family name, even though it’s one which will never be known. One far worse than her grandfather ever left; his an act to save the lives of the men and women under him, where her silence was borne out of nothing more than a selfish desire to remain ignorant. Bearing the name Williams, it comes to her then, never demanded she convince others of the honor of her family; no, it taught her to above all else protect those she loves. Determination building inside her as she makes to turn the corner of the column, panicked shouts from Liara in the distance, she realizes though terrified she’s finally at peace.


End file.
